


He Was Untouchable

by octonaut



Category: TwitchRP
Genre: Anxiety, Fluff, M/M, Yearning, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 11:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20114395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octonaut/pseuds/octonaut
Summary: jerry doesn't take his armor off... except what if he did? and what if ken was there? :o





	He Was Untouchable

**Author's Note:**

> this was a collaboration with the ever excellent LOARFY, pls check out the rad art he did for this on [his twitter](https://twitter.com/Loarfy/status/1154564292890390528?s=20) & [his tumblr](https://santistudios.tumblr.com/post/186577614201/part-of-a-kerry-collab-with-octonacht-go-read)!!!

"The armor doesn't come off,” Jerry says, and Ken goes for his usual nonchalant shrug. He’s smiling, but it doesn’t stop him from looking sad.

“I know it doesn’t, Jer.”

God, Jerry wishes it could be different. He’d take it all off if he could. Not permanently, of course—it’s saved his ass too many times for him to do away with it completely—but just… sometimes. In moments like these. Moments when it’s just him and Ken, and Ken keeps looking at him in that  _ way _ , with this dumb hungry look in his stupid eyes like he wants to eat Jerry alive, and you know what, Jerry thinks he could get into that, except the armor doesn’t come off.

Ever.

It’s weird. Usually the thought of being seen (exposed, vulnerable), let alone being  _ touched _ , sends a feeling like spiders crawling across his skin, with legs like little needles that pierce and poke. Just like real spiders only he can’t kill them, can he, when they’re under his skin, when they’re not real. Spiders, or maybe centipedes. The big ones the length of his forearm, wrapped so tightly around his throat that he can’t breathe, can’t think, can hardly do a thing except scramble to rip them off, to get rid of them, to get just one little gasp into his shriveled lungs.

So it’s weird that the thought of someone’s hands on him sends a different kind of shiver down his back. A good kind, maybe, but one that scares him just as much, because it’s not just anyone’s hands that he’s thinking about.

It’s Ken’s.

* * *

Jerry is untouchable. By that, Ken doesn’t mean that he charges into battle and never gets fucked up, because oh, he gets fucked up plenty. No, Ken means it in a much more literal sense. The man is literally untouchable. It’s like he’s protected by this thick outer shell—Well, Ken supposes it isn’t  _ like _ that at all, he supposes that pretty much sums it up in the most literal way possible. It’s the armor. Keeps him safe, keeps him hidden.

Ken tries to remember, has he ever even seen a slip of skin? What does Jerry  _ look _ like under there anyway? Are his abs rock hard or do they have a little bit of extra meat on them? Are his shoulders really as big as they look? What’s the body to body hair ratio? Maybe it’s stupid (it most certainly is) but knowing he’ll never get those answers makes him sad as hell because stupidly, ridiculously, he’s fairly certain that he is, quite simply, in love with the idiot.

He knows how it sounds.  _ But Ken, that’s the muscle of the group—the crazed cop-killer who has a little too much fun bashing people’s heads in, who never shows his face, who’s here for a good time not a long time. You’re not  _ supposed _ to be in love with him. _

And yet.

The stupidest part is how frustrating the whole armor thing is. Now, Ken knows these aren’t Jerry’s intentions, but it really does feel like Jerry is blocking him out, same as he blocks out the rest of the world. It’s not a fair thing to think, Ken knows, but it’s not like he can stop himself from thinking it. So yeah, maybe he’s been pestering Jerry a little bit about the armor, hinting at what they might do without it in the way, and it’s more out of frustration than anything since he knows nothing will come of it. It’s an outlet, a wish, a dream. A selfish one, maybe. Maybe it’s selfish to want Jerry to be a little less unknowable, to know him like no one else possibly could. Maybe it’s selfish… and maybe Ken doesn’t care. Maybe he just wants to stop feeling so goddamn out of his mind all the time.

So yes, thank you very much, Ken pesters.

“You could just try taking it off piece by piece,” he says, not really thinking about it. “Y’know, just a little thing at a time. Like a sock or something.”

Jerry doesn’t say anything. Of course he doesn’t… at least, until he does.

“Okay.”

Ken looks up from his magazine, expecting to see Jerry on the phone or something… but he isn’t. He’s empty-handed, standing awkwardly at the foot of the motel room’s bed, staring right back at him. Ken wonders if he even meant to say that, if it just slipped out, if it was at all sarcastic… but then he sees that look of determination in those blue eyes. It’s the same look he gets before he leaps from the speeding sedan with pistol in hand, the same one he wears when he looks at his crew, backed by the flashing lights of a police cruiser, and says, “Go, I’ll hold them off.” Only this time, he actually looks afraid.

Ken, sprawled across the bed on his stomach, lets the magazine lie flat on the bedspread. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Jerry says. “Yeah, just… piece by piece, y’know? Like you said. How bad can it be?”

Pretty bad, apparently, judging by the amount of time he spends standing there, hesitant and high-strung.

“Uh, Jerry? You still in there?”

Which is a pretty stupid thing to say, considering.

“Yeah, sorry, just… got distracted.”

“My eyes are up here, Jer.”

Jerry laughs—a tight, nervous sound. Spurred by Ken’s expectant eyes on him, he takes a long look at himself and eventually stares into the palm of his right hand, flexes his fingers.

_ The glove _ , Ken thinks hungrily.  _ He’s going for the glove. _

Ken swears, it takes him five minutes to even start taking the thing off. He wonders if his arms really are trembling or if it’s just an illusion caused by the buzzing fluorescent overhead. Ken feels like he’s going crazy.

“Let me help.”

“No, I got it,” Jerry says, feverishly, before turning sharply away.

“Yeah, I wonder about that,” Ken mutters. He rests his chin in his hand, even pouts a little, but Jerry’s gone again, eyes wide in concentration, his every muscle tense.

Ken thinks he even nods off a little—at least until a sound of feeble exertion scares the living daylights out of him and he jerks awake to find a puddle of drool in his palm and Jerry standing before him… one hand ungloved.

Ken doesn’t think he’s ever shaken grogginess so fast. That hand—shit, that’s  _ Jerry’s _ hand—but it looks so out of fucking place on that gargantuan armored body. Sort of like the store mannequins Ken used to fuck around with when he was a kid, you know, the ones you could unscrew the hands off of, stick ‘em in your own sleeves, and pretend like you just had really fucked up hands? Yeah, Jerry’s hand looks like that. Just as pale and sun-starved, just as alien, just as stiff.

But not plastic at all. No, disturbingly fleshy, actually—absolutely marred by a thick scar that runs across the back of it like the fucking Himilayas.

Kind of funny, really, how Ken is able to notice all that in the two second span before Jerry sucks in a shuddering breath and jams all his fingers back into the glove.

“Sorry,” he says in a voice unlike his own, and runs for the bathroom at the back of the motel room. He knocks over a chair on his way, locks the door, and—if the sound is anything to go by—cranks on both the sink and the shower, for whatever reason.

“Sure thing, Jer,” Ken says, and buries his face in the open binding of his magazine. The pit in his stomach is a big one, sure, but… he’s fairly certain now that he just saw something no one else has ever seen before, at least not for a very long time. The hand of the Breaker, the money-maker itself. The weapon that has pulled triggers, swung bats, and cracked heads.

As Ken shuts his eyes and takes in a big breath of stuffy magazine air, he imagines that hand across the back of his neck… cradling his jaw… finding a home against the small of his back…

He imagines it with all his might, knowing that it’s as close as he’ll ever get to the real thing.

* * *

“It’s just a little concussion, I’m sure it’s fine,” Ken says, even smiling a little, but no, Jerry is pretty sure it’s not fucking fine. Fingle and Dan sped off in the car the moment they realized Jerry wasn’t coming—which was fine, in hindsight, since the cop elected to take off after them instead—but Jerry’s not a doctor. He can’t even pretend to be a doctor, and he’s pretty sure a dingy corner of a parking garage isn’t the best place to treat a patient who may or may not have a serious head injury.

“Jeez, you really had to go and fall off the roof, huh?” Jerry says as he lowers Ken to the ground. He’s found them a decently secluded part of the parking garage, right behind one of the upward sloping ramps. He doesn’t feel  _ safe _ here… but it’s a defensible position, at least. If it comes to it, he can sling Ken onto his back and leap over the railing. It’ll be fine, probably. They’re only on the second floor.

“I was trying to impress you, bro, get off my back.”

“Yeah, I’m so impressed, carrying your sorry ass around is really cool.”

“I know, right? See, everything worked out just fine.”

“Uh huh,” Jerry says noncommittally. “Look, just turn around, okay, I want to make sure you didn’t split your head open.”

“I mean, I think you’d be able to tell if I did, but okay.”

Ken turns, and suddenly Jerry is faced with a full head of brown hair. Jerry hesitates—and feels like a complete idiot for having to psyche himself up more to do battle with a goddamn mullet than he does versus an actual cop with an actual gun.

“You don’t gotta be shy, Jer,” Ken says—wryly enough that Jerry decides he doesn’t have a concussion after all and is, in general, just a bastard.

“Just preparing myself,” Jerry says. “You could be hiding anything in this mess. A couple of rats, maybe.”

“Hey, it only looks like that ‘cause I went and fell on it, okay, you know it usually looks sexy as hell.”

Jerry will let that one slide, for Ken’s sake. He starts fingering through Ken’s hair in search of abrasions on his scalp. He finds one soon enough, but it’s not bad—a little bloody, rather like a scraped knee, probably fine. And thank god, because Jerry’s one track mind can’t focus on it for long before he sets off across Ken’s head again, looking for further injuries… Except he’s not really searching for anything anymore, is he? No, he’s been distracted by the feeling of Ken’s hair as it sifts through his fingers, completely absorbed by it, enslaved by it. It fills his chest with a heavy, leaden feeling because it’s too much—because it’s not enough.

Because it feels like nothing through the thick padding of his glove.

Jerry abruptly pulls his hand away. When Ken glances back at him, the impish look is gone from his face.

“Anything?”

“Just a scrape,” Jerry says, playing it cool. Trying to, anyway. “I think you’ll survive.”

“Cool, cool. Gucci, one might say.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You can be so uncool sometimes, you know that?” But Ken grins as he says it, and laughs a little, and something in Jerry’s chest flutters. He feels oddly compelled to commit that smile to memory so he can never forget it, the smile and the wrinkles around his eyes, the way his nose scrunches… the dirty little scrape on his cheek.

“You,” Jerry tries, pointing stupidly, “you got…”

Ken frowns. “What do I got?” He tries to swipe it away, whatever it is, and misses, and Jerry just thinks it’ll be easier if he does it for him. So he reaches out to gently brush it away—a graze of his thumb across a bony cheek…

And it feels like  _ nothing _ . It doesn’t feel like tiny flecks of gravel or warm blood or pliable skin. It feels like the glove’s fabric against the pad of his thumb, the fucking same as everything else. The same as his bat, the same as his gun, the same as a doorknob or a steering wheel or the rung of a ladder, and it  _ shouldn’t _ . Fucking hell, it’s supposed to feel like  _ Ken _ .

He’s left his hand there, he realizes, poised against the side of Ken’s face. He goes rigid with embarrassment but before he can pull it back, Ken traps it there, holds his palm against the glove’s armored back. He doesn’t take Jerry’s hand anywhere, just… keeps it there. Only for a moment. Yes, only for a moment, but a moment during which something unreadable flashes across his face as if he’s holding back something he desperately wants to say but doesn’t know how.

Or maybe Jerry is just projecting. Maybe he’s just seeing his own thoughts reflected back at him in the shine of those green eyes. Maybe Jerry’s heart is beating like a damn war drum because Ken is  _ here _ , and they’re so close to touching. So close. Maybe Jerry is realizing for the first time that he’s not the only one dizzy with desperation.

Jerry thinks he’s going fucking crazy.

* * *

Ken knows there’s something weighing on Jerry’s mind, but he also knows that bringing it up would be the quickest way to get Jerry to shut up about it, probably forever. That’s just how Jerry is, you see. The harder you try to crack him, the tighter he coils, the further he withdraws. Ken sees it whenever Fingle presses him too hard and he goes dark, his eyes glassy behind the mask. Like the armor doesn’t have anyone inside of it, not really.

So as badly as Ken wants to know what’s eating at him, he doesn’t ask. He hangs out by the motel room’s (frankly disgusting) microwave, watches the little microwave meal inside rotate while Jerry paces the room. Back and forth, back and forth, just as mindless as the microwave, honestly, and  _ fidgeting _ , pretending like what he’s doing right now isn’t totally weird. There really isn’t enough room in here for him to be moving around like this. Ken swears, he might lose his toes to the absentminded tread of Jerry’s boots at some point here.

_ What’s going on, Jer? _ Ken wonders absently, lulled by the microwave’s hum. And then, as if he’d said it out loud, Jerry stops. Without his pacing, the room suddenly feels very still indeed.

“I want to try again,” Jerry says.

Ken frowns. Try what again? Another robbery, since their last one went so poorly? Being the getaway driver, since Jerry had tried it once recently and not been completely horrible at it? Hell—is he talking about switching on the TV and searching for anything worth watching, even though they had decided pretty firmly about thirty minutes ago that all the late-night TV was trash?

The confusion, as potent as it is, lasts only a second, because Jerry looks terrified, and none of those things would ever scare Jerry the Breaker.

He’s talking about taking off the armor.

“Oh,” Ken says lamely. “Well shit.”

Ken doesn’t know what Jerry mistakes his surprise for, but it’s nothing good. Those blue eyes flood with uncertainty and Ken flounders to smooth things over.

“No, Jer, that’s great,” he says, “I’m on board a hundred percent, whenever you feel like it, let’s do this thing.”

“Now.”

Ken blinks. “Now?”

“I want to try now.”

Now. Here, in this shitty little motel room with the old CRT TV and the microwave that looks like an entire meatloaf might’ve exploded inside at some point; in the light of the yellowed fluorescent, to the rhythm of cars speeding by outside. Here. Now.

“Sure,” Ken says, afraid to believe, afraid to  _ breathe _ lest he scare Jerry away. “Whatever you want.”

So Jerry tries again, and same as last time, it starts with him locked in place, almost petrified, save for the waver of his hands and the flicker of his eyes—from Ken to the safety of the bathroom, and back again. Ken doesn’t know why it takes the immense gravity of Jerry’s fear this long to hit him. Christ, Ken feels like an ass. He shouldn’t have pressured him, shouldn’t have been so selfish, because look at where it’s gotten them. Look at the rise and fall of Jerry’s chest, those quick and shallow breaths that shift his armor. That  _ look _ in his eyes.

“You don’t have to,” Ken says softly.

“I want to,” Jerry replies, quick as a whip, and Ken thinks for a moment that he almost looks angry. Oh, yes, for an instant he looks absolutely furious—but not at Ken. A look that bitter and hateful could only be reserved for the worst of Jerry’s enemies.

Frankly, Ken can’t bear to see him like this any longer. He takes the risk and abandons his post at the microwave, and Jerry must really be serious about this because he doesn’t shy away when Ken sits on the edge of the bed right in front of him.

“Might help if you relax a little,” Ken suggests with the flicker of a smile. Jerry almost laughs.

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say.”

“Just sit down with me, you big dummy.”

He does. He doesn’t fight the careful hand that tugs him down, doesn’t protest when Ken scoots closer to him (and to be honest, Ken doesn’t really mean to do it, it’s just that Jerry’s a heavy guy and he tends to become a kind of black hole whenever he sits on a couch or something, you know how it is). Maybe Ken only imagines it but it almost feels like Jerry leans into him a little.

“Okay,” Jerry mutters. “Okay, this is… a little better. I think I can do this.”

“You just gotta rip it off like a bandaid.”

“Right, like a bandaid…” Jerry stares down at his hand. He grumbles, “I always hated taking those things off when I was a kid. So much suspense and then it’s not even a big deal, it just hurts for a second and rips off all your hairs and leaves a bunch of sticky shit on your skin—”

“Jerry,” Ken says, and laughs despite how he tries not to. “Bro. You got this.”

Jerry looks at him then with tired blue eyes full of worry and frustration… and a little bit of something new, something open and vulnerable and trusting. A realization crashes hard over Ken like a storm-charged wave: he would sit here with him all night if Jerry asked him to. Even if the glove never came off it would be worth it, just to be this close to him. Just to be with him. And fuck him if that isn’t sappy as all hell, but it’s dizzying how strongly he feels it. Jerry must see it in his face somehow because for a moment, his hands stop trembling. Ken almost tells him out loud that he’ll stay here all night, all day, however long it takes.

But he doesn’t have to, because Jerry abruptly rips the glove from his hand with a desperate ferocity that surprises both of them.

Of course, the trembling starts up again as soon as his skin hits the air but the rest of him goes so still, as if he’s forgotten how to breathe. Ken fights not to be hypnotized by that hand’s scar again, its otherworldly paleness. He keeps his eyes on Jerry, desperate to coax him out of whatever darkness that’s trying to take him away.

“Jerry, look at me.”

Jerkily, Jerry does.

“You’re fine,” Ken murmurs. Jerry’s breath hitches, so he says it again. “You’re fine. I’ve got you.”

Jerry still has that glove, clamped so tightly in his other hand. It rather reminds Ken of a hungry snake—dangerous and insidious, liable to lash out without warning. He doesn’t trust it. He’d really just like to throw it across the fucking room, honestly.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Jerry says. His quavering voice jerks Ken back to the present.

“You can, Jerry.”

“I-I can’t—”

“Then let me,” Ken says, and holds out his hand. It’s an offering, an option, a question.  _ How serious  _ are _ you really? Do you want this as much as I do? What  _ do  _ you want, Jerry? If it’s me, I’m right here. I’ve been here. All you gotta do is take me. _

Jerry—god, sweet Jerry, electric Jerry, this whirlwind motherfucker—reaches for Ken so tentatively that Ken forgets to breathe. Time seems to slow to match their pace. Ken stops hearing the microwave, the cars, the buzzing fluorescent. For now, all that exists is the tepid juggernaut beside him. All that matters is Jerry.

Their fingertips touch and something like a surge of electricity races up Ken’s arm and bursts in his head like a goddamn nuke. He’s pretty sure he feels Jerry shiver, and wonders how fucking  _ long _ it’s been since Jerry has touched anyone like this. Since he’s been touched. Thank god he doesn’t pull away. Ken thinks it might kill him if he did.

With the faintest flicker of confidence, Jerry’s fingertips traipse down the length of Ken’s fingers like the legs of the world’s ugliest spider. They reach Ken’s palm, their touch so featherlight that it makes Ken shiver now, and the whole thing is so silly and overdramatic that it makes him laugh.

“Bro,” Ken says, his grin stupid and wild, “your fingers are like fat little sausages.”

“What—no they aren’t, shut up,” Jerry says, and he laughs too. It’s a faint sound, tepid and breathy, but fuck if it isn’t the best sound in the world right now. It’s like a breath of fresh air after a night curled under the blankets, like a lantern in the impenetrable darkness of a cave.

He dares to touch Jerry back and miraculously, Jerry lets him. God, he  _ lets _ him. He holds so still as Ken’s long, calloused fingers dance across the wrinkles in his palm, the rise of his knuckles, the pale, patchy hair on the back of his hand. Across that old scar, mottled purple and white.

Would it be too much to tell him how monumental this is? Would it just really be too much to look into his eyes and tell him how fucking incredible he is, how Ken’s big-ass dumb-ass heart feels like it’s overflowing but like, not in a bad way?

Quietly, he says, “You holding up okay, big guy?”

Jerry nods tersely.

“Breathe, Jer.”

The explosive exhale that Jerry looses may or may not startle the shit out of Ken. It most certainly does, however, make them both giggle, because from the perspective of a normal person this must be the stupidest thing. It must be. Has to be.

“Hey, you mind if I do something?” Ken asks.

“Uh, what kind of thing?” Jerry says. His voice is small, but at least he’s talking. “Is it a good thing?”

“Please, have I ever done anything to you that was less than delightful?”

“I mean, you did run over my fingers with a bicycle one time while I was trying to patch the tire...”

“I do not remember that at all, therefore, it doesn’t count. C’mon, Jer, can I?”

Jerry sighs. “Yeah, fine.” Then he pauses, looks up. “I trust you.”

Oh, Ken could die.

Jerry could too, apparently, because when Ken presses their palms together and interlocks their fingers he quivers like a firework that’s about to go off. The barest glimpse of face Ken can see through the mask flushes fire red, the whites of his eyes as bright and round as light bulbs. For a second his whole body tenses like he’s about to jerk away. He turns into a statue pressed into Ken’s side, hard armored edges poking into his hip, his ribs. Ken almost loses his shit… almost. Instead, he holds it together, uses his thumb to rub a slow rhythm against the back of Jerry’s hand. Slow, soothing—he hopes, anyway, since his own heart is pounding harder and faster than it has any right to.

Funny thing: Jerry’s hands are smaller than his. Ken never realized that.

“That bad, huh?” Ken says wryly.

“No,” Jerry says, practically before Ken can even shut his mouth. “No, it’s—it’s good. This is good. I’m… just trying not to freak out. You know.”

“Well you’re doing a bang up job. No sarcasm. I mean it.”

Again, maybe Ken just imagines it, but it feels like Jerry leans into him a little more. So yeah, maybe Ken rests his head on Jerry’s shoulder. Maybe the two of them keep their fingers intertwined, skin touching skin, gooseflesh slowly dying away.

“Your hand is sweaty as hell right now, bro,” Ken says.

“Yeah, well, the armor gets pretty warm…”

“I mean, it’s kinda hot.”

“You’re a sick man, Ken.”

“You love me.”

Eventually, in a voice so quiet that Ken only hears because Jerry is pressed into his side, Jerry murmurs, “Yeah.”

* * *

Removing the glove gets easier. Not easy, but easier. Jerry still visits the wonderful world of mental breakdowns every time he tries to take it off, but he almost feels like he’s figuring out how to combat the mind-numbing paralysis that strikes him.

It’s Ken, really. Just Ken. Because it’s worth it to see the way cool, unflappable Ken lights up like a damn Christmas tree every time.

It’s worth it for the stretches of downtime away from Fingle and Dan where he and Ken can just spend the night in the cabin, doing little more than talking and laughing and being stupid. It’s worth it for the night Ken leans back against him, the lean muscles in his back pressed against the front of Jerry’s armor, and Jerry finally finds out what his hair feels like.

Crunchy, to be frank, and not very soft… but still worth it. Ken lets him mess around with it far longer than he expects before swatting his hand away like a fly, scolding, “Get your sausages out of my hair, you’re gonna make me look like a fool.”

But he’s smiling as he says it, and Jerry lets him take his hand when he comes looking for it.

It’s worth it, even when Jerry comes to the horrifying realization that all of this means something. It means something that this makes Jerry happy, that he  _ cares _ it makes Ken happy too, that Jerry is willing to do any of this in the first place. Jerry would storm the PD for him. Jerry would square up against every gang in the city for him. Jerry would take off a piece of his  _ armor _ for him.

Jerry loves him.

It’s completely terrifying, of course, borderline petrifying, and Jerry turns so red when he realizes it that he very nearly combusts… but it’s okay, because the fear always melts away whenever Ken looks at him, like an ice cube held over an open flame. God, all Ken has to do is  _ look _ .

So when Ken kisses his hand for the first time? Oh, that makes him feel like he’s dying in the best way. The feeling of his lips on the back of his hand, the tickle of his mustache against Jerry’s knuckles, the sly look Ken shoots up when his mouth lingers against Jerry’s skin longer than it should. Jerry, with a fire burning behind his mask and a delightful tremble in his arms, has never wanted to kiss him so badly. To  _ be _ kissed by him. To let his hands have their way with him and roam wherever they please. To be seen, to be known, by one man alone.

Maybe not today, maybe not even within the next few months, but someday. Together, they can work up to it, chip away his armor piece by piece until they find the man underneath. Together… As long as they’re together, Jerry doesn’t have to be afraid.


End file.
